Talking Point | All stories

Bela pod Bezdezem, a little town of about 8000 inhabitants, 60 kilometers north-east of Prague, looks like a quiet, sleepy place. Four kilometres further into a forest you find a rather different atmosphere - at the residential center for asylum seekers, Bela-Jezova. The remote area used to be a Soviet Army base until 1990 when it was, after refugees started coming into Czechoslovakia, transformed into a residential center where asylum seekers wait for a final decision on their applications.

Even though the Czech Republic became a member of the European Union on May 1, border restrictions will remain for another three years. Entry into the Schengen system, which was originally planned for 2006, had been delayed until October 2007.

This week the first ever European Parliamentary elections will take place in the Czech Republic. Czech people will choose their Euro deputies from a wide list of candidates presented by 31 political parties. It is the first time Czechs are voting for an international body, so for many it is not clear yet what their attitude towards these elections will be.

Many foreign visitors to Prague or elsewhere in the Czech Republic are often puzzled by the ticking sound of traffic lights at pedestrian crossings. It is the acoustic equivalent of the green and red lights and for several years it has been helping the blind and visually impaired to move around cities much more independently and confidently.

Today - 15 years after the Velvet Revolution - there are literally dozens of different media publications on sale at newsstands throughout the country. There certainly doesn't seem to be any shortage of magazines and newspapers for Czechs to choose from. It's a far cry from the sort of tightly controlled press that prevailed under communism just 15 years ago. There are some, however, who maintain that the Czech media is not fulfilling its crucial democratic role in fostering political debate and social analysis as well as it should.

Last week radio and television broadcasters from across the world - from China to the United States - gathered in Prague to discuss the future of international broadcasting. This was the third annual conference of the Association of International Broadcasters. This year there was a huge amount to discuss, especially with the intense and long-running debate over the role of the media in the war in Iraq. And there was also plenty of discussion over issues directly relevant to us at Radio Prague - what is the future for smaller international broadcasters

In a month's time Czechs will go to the polls to elect their first ever European MPs. The election campaign is in full swing and the parties are trying to appeal to voters in various ways. One of the parties has put up billboards mocking the poor ability of the ruling Social Democrats to communicate in foreign languages in EU institutions. They are hinting at the scandal that was caused by the sudden resignation of the government's original candidate for EU commissioner Milos Kuzvart. Rumour had it that it was his poor knowledge of English that

Hello and welcome to Talking Point. We're coming to you from Jaroslav Seifert High School in Prague and my guests are: David, Petra, Michal, Petr, Veronika, and Stepan. We're gathered here because of course at this moment the Czech Republic has acceded to the European Union. We're here to discuss the students' views, what they expect.

In today's special EU edition of Talking Point, we look at how ordinary Czechs view EU membership. With us today are independent commentators Prof. Vladimira Dvorakova from the Prague School of Economics and Dr. Jiri Pehe, Director of the New York University in Prague.

The agriculture chapter, the biggest and most complicated part of EU legislation, has undoubtedly been the most problematic chapter during accession talks. While the Czech Republic has taken quite a progressive step in the past 1.5 years to adopt hundreds of new or amended laws, it still has its work cut out for itself when it comes to modernising its veterinary system and extracting money from EU funds. Czech farmers too have been anything but silent, protesting against some of these new rules and regulations, which often call for costly investment